Alberto Sordi

Alberto Sordi
Alberto Sordi in the movie Sotto il sole di Roma (1948)
Born	(1920-06-15)15 June 1920 Rome, Italy
Died	24 February 2003(2003-02-24) (aged 82) Rome, Italy
Other names	Albertone
Years active	1937–1998
Website	http://albertosordi.it

Alberto Sordi (Italian: [alˈbɛrto ˈsordi]; 15 June 1920 – 24 February 2003), Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian actor. He was also a film director and the dubbing voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian version of the Laurel & Hardy films.

Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician, Sordi enrolled in Milan's dramatic arts academy but was kicked out because of his thick Roman accent. In the meantime he studied to be an opera singer, a bass. It was his accent and voice that would later prove to be his trademark.

In a career that spanned seven decades, Sordi established himself as an icon of Italian cinema with his representative skills at both comedy and light drama. His movie career began in the late 1930s with bit parts and secondary characters in wartime movies. After the war he began working as a dubber for the Italian versions of Laurel and Hardy shorts, voicing Oliver Hardy. Early roles included Fellini's The White Sheik in 1952, Fellini's I vitelloni (1953), a movie about young slackers, in which he plays a weak, effeminate immature loafer and a starring role in Lo scapolo (The Bachelor) playing a single man trying to find love. In 1959 he appeared in Monicelli's The Great War, considered by many critics and film historians to be one of the best Italian comedies. The Hollywood Foreign Press recognized his abilities when he was awarded a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Il diavolo (1963). Sordi acted alongside Britain’s David Niven in the World War II comedy The Best of Enemies and in 1965 he was in another highly regarded comedy, I complessi (Complexes).